KNO vs XITK

KNOCAXS Knowledge Leaders ETF

XITKAState Street SPDR FactSet Innovative Technology ETF

In short

KNO Most innovation ETFs buy US tech stories. KNO rebuilds the books instead, treating R&D, brand and training spend as investment, then buying the developed-market companies that rank highest on that knowledge capital.

XITK Most innovation funds pick a theme and hope. XITK lets the data pick: FactSet ranks tech and electronic-media segments by growth, keeps the top quartile, then equal-weights roughly 100 names so no single giant runs the show.

Stated mandate

KNO The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in equities of highly innovative knowledge-leader companies. It uses a proprietary quantitative screen emphasizing intangible-adjusted innovation intensity, financial strength, profitability, research and development, earnings growth, and operating cash flow.

XITK The fund seeks to track the total return of the FactSet Innovative Technology Index before fees and expenses. Its mandate targets innovative technology-related companies with robust revenue growth and leading-edge products or services.

Why people hold it

• KNO The mechanism is the point: spending on R&D, advertising, brand and employee training is treated as capital, not expense, surfacing innovators the usual tech screens miss.axsinvestments.com
• All-sector and global by design, spanning North America, Europe and Asia, which is unusual in a category that leans heavily on US technology names.axsinvestments.com
• Innovation is not the only test. The screen also weighs profitability, financial strength, earnings growth and operating cash flow.
• Live since 2015 under its original Knowledge Leaders name before AXS took it over in 2024, so this is a long-running approach, not a freshly minted theme.prnewswire.com

• XITK Costs 0.45% a year, comfortably under the 0.65% median for disruptive-innovation funds, and it does it inside a plain index wrapper from a major ETF shop.
• Equal weighting at each reset gives the hundredth holding the same slot as the first, so results lean on the whole basket rather than two or three mega-caps.factset.com
• Screens segments, not slogans: only companies drawing most of their revenue from the fastest-growing corners of tech and electronic media make the cut.factset.comssga.com
• Trading since 2016, giving it a live record across several tech cycles, and it sits in the upper tier of our innovation-fund cohort review.

Worth knowing

• KNO The 0.75% fee sits above the category median across the 31 innovation funds we track, and above peers like KOMP at 0.20% and XT at 0.46%.
• Among the smaller and more lightly traded funds in its group, which can mean wider bid-ask spreads and more price impact on bigger orders.
• Actively managed on a proprietary screen and measured against a broad equal-weighted world index, so the portfolio can look nothing like a US tech fund.sec.gov

• XITK Growth-screened tech, equal-weighted, means smaller names carry a giant's weight. Expect a rougher ride than a cap-weighted tech fund.
• Thinly traded for its category and modest in size, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the household-name tech ETFs.
• Cheaper shelfmates exist: KOMP runs a broad new-economy basket for 0.20%.

Full KNO profile⁠

Full XITK profile⁠